Alternator in New Jersey

The connections corrode before the machine does

Damp air works on the exposed side of an alternator: the terminal stud, the plug on the regulator, and the earth strap between engine and body. A resistance in any of those looks exactly like a failing alternator on a meter at the battery, and is a fraction of the price to fix.

Check the charging voltage at the alternator's own output and then at the battery. A meaningful difference between the two is a connection, not a machine.

Shore salt air on top of it.

The climate, in a number

Snowfall averages 40 to 50 inches a year in the north of the state against 10 to 15 inches in the far south. Every one of those days is a day the cooling fan, the air conditioning clutch and the blower are all drawing at once, and the alternator is what carries them.

What goes on the roads in winter

Rock salt goes down wetted with liquid calcium chloride or salt brine, which makes it start melting sooner than dry salt would. What is spread on the road reaches the alternator through the same wheel-arch opening that cools it, and a case packed with salted grit runs hotter than one that is clean.

The densest traffic in the country

New Jersey has more people per square mile than any other state, and the driving reflects it. The Turnpike, the Parkway, the approaches to two of the country's busiest crossings, and local roads carrying volumes they were never laid out for.

That is a brake problem more than anything else. Stop-start driving means the brakes do essentially all of the speed control, at full vehicle weight, with none of the aerodynamic drag that slows a car on an open road. Pads here are consumed at a mileage that would be half-life in a rural state.

What else New Jersey does to a car

Salt across the turnpike corridor, applied to the densest traffic in the country.

Long periods at idle in dense traffic load everything that depends on airflow, and count hours rather than miles.

What we hold, and what it costs

5 options from Bosch, Cardone, Denso, Remy and Valeo, from $239.99 to $309.99. Prices are firm — where we have no price we publish none.

We are a reseller rather than a manufacturer: we source the part, check it over and sell it, and we confirm it against your year, make, model and engine before it ships rather than asserting a fit on the page. We ship anywhere in New Jersey, including Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and Trenton.